1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to personal communication systems, and more particularly to a personal communication device having the capability to generate dual tone multi-frequency signals to automatically dial a conventional telephone in response to a received message.
2. Description of Related Art
As communication technology continues to improve and frequencies are allocated for use by personal communication systems, the use of such personal communication systems has been growing rapidly. For example, it is common today to see a person carrying a personal pager which receives messages over a radio air link. Such messages typically communicate to the person carrying the pager a numeric sequence which has been keyed in by a caller through a telephone keypad after the caller dials a telephone number that has been uniquely assigned to that particular pager. This numeric sequence typically will include a telephone number which can be dialed to contact the caller. Once the message is received, the person carrying the pager may go to a telephone and dial the number which is indicated in the message in order to contact the caller.
Such pages are inconvenient because the person responding to the page message must read the telephone number from the pager display and manually dial the number. Therefore, the responding person must either perform the cumbersome task of simultaneously holding the pager and the telephone handset while dialing, or read the telephone number, put down the pager, remember the number, and dial. As is always the case when a person attempts to dial a telephone number, there is the possibility that the number will be dialed incorrectly either due to the person making an error in reading the number, remembering the number incorrectly between the time the number is read and the time the number is dialed, or making a mechanical error in the dialing process.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus which allows a personal communication device to interface directly with a conventional telephone to automatically dial a number which has been received as part of a message. The present invention provides such a method and apparatus.